Earth Sciences: Year In Review 2010

Scientists in 2010 alternately challenged and supported the notion of a dry moon and the role of a single meteorite impact that closed the Cretaceous Period. Large earthquakes struck Haiti and Chile, and the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano hampered air travel over Europe. NOAA reported that 1999 through 2009 was the warmest decade on record.

The first issue in 2010 of the journal Elements opened with a comprehensive review by Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and John Ferry of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., entitled “Mineral Evolution: Mineralogy in the Fourth Dimension.” Hazen and Ferry’s article defined three eras of Earth’s history spanning 10 stages. It was followed by five articles that provided detailed accounts of the minerals that evolved during each stage.

Apatites are any of a series of relatively soft phosphate minerals. Apatite crystals found in rocks …

Courtesy of Professor George Rossman, California Institute of Technology

During Stage 1 of the “Era of Planetary Accretion,” which occurred earlier than 4.55 billion years ago, supernova explosions distributed elements that condensed into about 60 minerals. This small collection expanded to about 250 minerals during Stage 2 as meteorites and planetesimals were formed. Stage 3 was the first of three stages in the “Era of Crust and Mantle Reworking,” an era that lasted from 4.55 billion to 2.5 billion years ago. During Stage 3 geochemical and geologic processes, such as volcanism on rocky planets and moons, increased the number of minerals to 350–500, and during Stages 4 and 5 granitic rocks and continents and plate tectonics developed, increasing the mineral count to 1,500.

The “Era of Biologically Mediated Mineralogy,” which began 3.9 billion years ago and continues to this day, is characterized by biochemical processes. The most influential was Stage 7, the “Great Oxidation Event,” which started some 2.4 billion years ago; over the course of 600 million years, atmospheric oxygen increased to almost 1% of present levels, and mineral species more than doubled to almost 4,000. During Stage 10 (the most recent 500 million years), new biomineralization processes occurred, including shell and skeleton formation; these increased the number of known mineral species to more than 4,400.

Hazen and Ferry argued that classifying minerals in terms of history allows the comparison of planets and moons by their geologic, geochemical, and biological evolution. For instance, the Moon is generally understood to have separated from Earth following the impact of a Mars-sized asteroid. This event would have occurred during the second era of mineral evolution, and so the Moon would also have developed during this era, but only into Stage 3—an idea consistent with the conclusion that the Moon was essentially dehydrated during formation.

The dogma of a dry Moon was challenged and counterchallenged in two studies examining the geochemistry of hydrogen and chlorine in samples of the mineral apatite taken from lunar rocks. In June, Francis McCubbin of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and colleagues and Jeremy Boyce of Caltech and colleagues independently published analyses for hydrogen and chlorine, reporting a range of 220–2,405 ppm (parts per million) of H2O in three lunar samples. From these analyses they concluded that H2O levels in the residual magmas fell between 200 and 17,000 ppm. Boyce concluded that because the apatites in the sample were similar to those on Earth, portions of lunar mantle or crust were richer in volatile components than previously thought. With additional assumptions and extrapolations, McCubbin estimated that the minimum H2O content of deep-seated lunar source rocks ranged from 64 ppb (parts per billion) to 21 ppm, between two and five orders of magnitude higher than the current estimate of less than 1 ppb.

In August, Zachary Sharp of the University of New Mexico and his coauthors challenged the novelty of a hydrous Moon in an article that analyzed chlorine isotopes in lunar basalts, volcanic glasses, and apatite grains. In terrestrial rocks the ratios for chlorine isotopes are concentrated within a narrow interval; however, they found that in lunar materials the range was found to be 25 times wider. Sharp and colleagues argued that hydrogen in Earth processes prevented the differential vaporization of chlorine that took place in lunar magmas, and they concluded that the Moon was thus essentially anhydrous. They suggested that the high hydrogen content found in lunar apatites occurred in anomalous rock samples with unusually high concentrations of volatile components. The Moon’s water debate continued.

It is widely accepted that a massive asteroid impact on Earth about 65.5 million years ago (Era 3, Stage 10, of Hazen and Ferry’s classification) near present-day Chicxulub in Mexico coincided with one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history. Alternative explanations for the extinctions at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods (the K-Pg boundary, formerly known as the K-T, or Cretaceous-Tertiary, boundary) persisted. The leading alternative hypothesis considered the climatic effects of the Deccan lavas in India, which erupted through a time interval of about one million years.

Evidence for these competing hypotheses was reviewed in March by an international group of 41 authors led by Peter Schulte of the Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Ger. All of the authors “contributed equally to this work,” thus implying that their conclusion was not just a vote of believers. They synthesized recent geologic and geochemical evidence from sedimentary layers at the K-Pg boundary and illustrated a global pattern of change with distance from Chicxulub—a pattern consistent with the explosive distribution of ejecta from this impact site. An evaluation of the evidence for biological turnovers (that is, mass extinction followed by recovery) supported the conclusion that neither multiple-impact nor volcanic-eruption scenarios could account for the observed geology and paleontology around the world. They presented compelling evidence that the Chicxulub impact triggered the K-Pg mass extinction.

The single-impact hypothesis was contested in September by David Jolley of Kings College, Aberdeen, Scot., and four coauthors, who presented evidence that a second, smaller meteorite impact near present-day Boltysh, Ukr., predated the Chicxulub event by 2,000–5,000 years. The close timing of the Boltysh and Chicxulub events raised the possibility that two or more bolide strikes contributed to the K-Pg mass extinction.

In April a report by Steven Whitmeyer of James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Va., and two colleagues described recent developments in field mapping. They noted that modern mobile computers equipped with GPS (global positioning systems) and GIS (geographic information systems) can be used to record and interpret geologic data, and digital sources, such as Google Earth, can organize the data in three dimensions. They also suggested that the pairing of digital field methods with virtual 3-D representation has become a necessary skill for many academics as well as professionals in the geosciences.

Geologic mapping extends into the third dimension through continental drilling. In April, John Geissman of the University of New Mexico and two coauthors described plans for the Colorado Plateau Coring Project, formulated at a 2009 workshop by 37 researchers from nine countries. Beginning in the second half of 2010, drill holes in five locations sampled a continuous sequence of rocks dating from 250 million to 145 million years ago. The drill cores were expected to reveal a continuous geologic record that would capture dramatic climate change, the appearance of modern life-forms, and two major mass extinctions.

As society has slowly transitioned from its dependence on petroleum and other fossil fuels, a class of 17 metals called rare-earth elements (REEs) have become increasingly important. REEs are used in catalysts and in permanent magnets for components that are vital for the defense industry, hybrid-electric vehicles, wind turbines, computers, and motors. REEs are scarce and concentrated in minerals in some rocks, such as the carbonatites. Writer David Kramer reported in the May issue of Physics Today that one-third of the world’s estimated reserves occurred in the United States, though China also had large reserves. Owing to lower extraction and production costs, China now provided more than 95% of the world’s supply, whereas all but one of the American rare-earth mines had closed. Kramer noted that U.S. production could take 10 years to reach full capacity, since operations were hampered in part by the lack of geology graduates with rare-earths experience.

Geophysics

One of the most devastating earthquakes in modern times struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. Occurring at 4:53 pm local time just 25 km (1 km = 0.6 mi) west of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, the earthquake was large (moment magnitude of 7.0) and shallow (focal depth of 13 km). It was felt throughout Haiti and the neighbouring Dominican Republic and as far away as southern Florida. Official estimates put the death toll at over 222,000, with an additional 300,000 injured and 1,300,000 homeless. (See Sidebar ) The massive human losses were attributed in part to relatively poor building construction and the lack of earthquake-resistant design practices. (SeeSpecial Report.) Damage was caused by strong ground shaking, soil liquefaction, landslides, rockslides, and a tsunami, which had wave heights (peak to trough) of only 12 cm (about 5 in) and thus resulted in relatively few of the deaths. The Haiti earthquake was produced by left-lateral strike-slip faulting in or near the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone separating the Caribbean and North America tectonic plates. The relative motion between these plates is considered to be small (7 mm [0.3 in] per year), but slippage along the fault zone probably produced two of the region’s large historical earthquakes, which occurred in 1751 and 1770. Although the 2010 earthquake relieved some of the stress that had accrued, the seismic hazard remained high along this fault zone as well as in the nearby Septentrional fault zone running along the northern coast of Hispaniola, the island on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located.

The 1.8-m (6-ft) tsunami spawned from the powerful earthquake that struck Chile in February 2010 …

Kyodo/AP

Just six weeks later an even larger earthquake occurred in central Chile. This massive event had a moment magnitude of 8.8, making it the fifth largest earthquake to be recorded with seismometers. The human losses were at least 521 people killed and about 12,000 injured. Compared with the human cost of the Haitian earthquake, that of the Chilean earthquake was light (a result attributed to sound construction practices), though Chile’s economic damages, estimated at $30 billion, were larger than the $8 billion estimated for Haiti. The earthquake produced a tsunami that was recorded by tide gauges across the Pacific basin at amplitudes of tens to hundreds of centimetres. The earthquake began at 3:34 am local time on February 27, and it lasted for more than 120 seconds as it propagated bilaterally away from the epicentre, some 335 km southwest of the Chilean capital of Santiago. The rupture extended nearly 500 km along the megathrust boundary that separates the Nazca plate from the South American plate. The average slip (relative motion) between the two plates during the earthquake was approximately 5 m (16 ft), and the maximum slip was approximately 20 m (66 ft). This region is well known for producing large earthquakes, with the Nazca plate subducting beneath South America at the rapid rate of 80 mm (3.1 in) per year. The 2010 event occurred mostly to the north of the rupture area of the great 1960 earthquake, which, with a moment magnitude of 9.5, was the largest earthquake ever recorded.

The summit caldera of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano began erupting explosively early on the morning of April 14. Scientists had been monitoring several geophysical indicators that preceded the main event—including a swarm of seismicity in 2009–10, increased surface deformation, and an effusive flank eruption that began on March 20. The erupting plume of ash reached a height of more than eight kilometres within the first day, and prevailing winds quickly spread the ash to mainland Europe. Because it was feared that fine particles of tephra in the ash cloud would cause jet engines to fail, the eruption led to a six-day closure of European airspace, causing airlines to lose more than $250 million daily. Significant volcanic activity continued for more than a month after the initial eruption; however, further flight restrictions were minor. Iceland sits at the divergent plate boundary between the North America and Eurasian tectonic plates, and its volcanism is thought to derive from a quasi-cylindrical upwelling of material, referred to as a plume, rising from deep within Earth’s mantle. Geophysicists continued to debate the precise depth of origin for mantle plumes; some argued that they emerge from the very base of the mantle that touches Earth’s liquid outer core, almost 3,000 km below the ocean floor.

In September an international team of scientists reported new evidence that helped explain the surprising stability of continental lithosphere. In contrast to oceanic lithosphere, which exists at Earth’s surface for approximately 200 million years before subducting into the mantle, continental lithosphere may remain at the surface for billions of years after formation. The oldest cores of the continents, cratons, possess exceptionally thick roots (180–250 km deep) that add to the stability of continental lithosphere. The research team measured the amount of water in mantle xenoliths that had been naturally exhumed from the base of South Africa’s Kaapvaal craton during a kimberlite eruption. The scientists searched 18 xenoliths for water by using Fourier transform infrared analysis, a method capable of detecting water at levels as low as parts per million. The xenoliths were found to be exceptionally dry, which implied that the lithospheric mantle of cratons is exceptionally strong, having a viscosity at least 20 times and possibly hundreds of times higher than that of the underlying asthenosphere. Such mechanical strength keeps the cratons from easily breaking up as they experience the tectonic stresses associated with traveling across Earth’s surface.

Meteorology and Climate

The second and final stage of the largest and most ambitious tornado field experiment in history ran from May 1 to June 15, 2010, across the U.S. Great Plains. As in 2009, VORTEX2 (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2) involved a small army of scientists and a fleet of research vehicles, including 10 mobile radars. The effort also included weather balloons, vehicles capable of dropping instruments ahead of storms, and a remote-controlled aircraft. The project was designed to improve the scientific understanding of how tornadoes originate and develop, as well as inform and improve the process of severe weather prediction.

Smoke from hundreds of wildfires, which were exacerbated by record heat, mixed with pollution to …

Sergey Ponomarev/AP

In 2009 the teams intercepted a single tornado-producing thunderstorm; in 2010, however, VORTEX2 researchers gathered data on at least 30 rotating thunderstorms and 20 tornadoes, including one of a series that ripped across Oklahoma during a major tornado outbreak on May 10. The amount of data collected by the researchers was so vast that the analysis phase of the experiment was expected to last 5 to 10 years. The funding for the project came from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In 2010 there was also a big push to learn more about the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic basin, with no fewer than three separate airborne campaigns during the 2010 tropical cyclone season. NASA conducted the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) mission to study how storms form and rapidly intensify into hurricanes. A second experiment sponsored by the NSF, the Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud-Systems in the Tropics (PREDICT), focused on discovering why some clusters of tropical thunderstorms develop into cyclones whereas others dissipate. The third project, led by NOAA, was known as the Intensity Forecasting Experiment (IFEX). Although the three projects were independent, the groups coordinated with one another, and all had the common purpose of unlocking the secrets of hurricane formation and evolution.

NASA’s DC-8 aircraft flew into Hurricane Earl four times in late August and early September as the storm strengthened and weakened along its path between Puerto Rico and North Carolina. September 2 was a historic day for the GRIP project, as it marked the first time that NASA had flown a Global Hawk drone over a fully formed hurricane. The data collected on Hurricane Earl were expected to help scientists better understand how such phenomena intensify and dissipate.

The long-term impact of a warming climate on tropical cyclones had been a topic of considerable debate for a few years. To resolve the issue, scientists on both sides of the debate collaborated in an attempt to arrive at a consensus. A review paper published by researchers from NOAA and other institutions concluded that the impact of climate change on past storm activity remained uncertain. However, climate projections based on modern theory and the latest computer-simulation models indicated that by 2100 global warming would cause tropical cyclones to become more intense and would cause precipitation rates to increase near the storms’ centres; however, the overall number of tropical cyclones would decrease globally.

Record heat in the U.S. and Russia during the summer of 2010 helped to refocus global-warming concerns following episodes of heavy snow and severe cold in the eastern U.S. and Europe during the previous winter. The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that the global land temperature in July set a new record for that month, and the combined land-ocean temperatures for January through July also broke a record. NASA announced in December that its preliminary climate data, which spanned the period December 2009 through November 2010, demonstrated the highest average annual global temperature in 131 years.

The rising trend in average annual global temperatures appeared to level off for the years 1999 through 2009, contradicting the projections of some climate models; however, a longer-term perspective suggested that warming was ongoing. NOAA’s annual report called State of the Climate, released in 2010 for the year 2009, examined 10 key climate indicators, including land and ocean temperatures, snow cover, ocean heat content, sea level, Arctic sea-ice extent, and glacier mass balance, which all pointed to a warming climate. The report noted that the past decade was the warmest on record and that average global temperatures had risen during the past 50 years. Addressing public concerns about the evidence for global warming, the report stated that the “observed changes in a broad range of indicators provide a self-consistent story of a warming world.”

Reverberations continued from the scandal dubbed “Climategate,” the electronic release in November 2009 of more than 1,000 e-mails and documents hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich, Eng. Officials in the U.K. and elsewhere investigated charges that CRU scientists had manipulated data to boost the case for human-induced climate change and had suppressed dissenting viewpoints. The reviews posted in 2010 generally supported the research integrity of the scientists who had written the e-mails, but they also noted problems. The most thorough investigation, led by Muir Russell, former vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow, Scot., found no evidence of malicious intent. Its final report indicated that the researchers’ “rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt,” but it did note “a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness” among the researchers and the UEA. Critics of the reviews stated that the reports did not address some of the allegations raised by the e-mails—such as the deletion of e-mails to avoid complying with the Freedom of Information Act, the withholding of temperature and other climate data, and the interference with the peer-review process that prevented the publication of research disputing the notion that human-induced climate change was occurring.

The United States Senate failed in 2010 to pass legislation containing a carbon cap-and-trade proposal, which would allow the government to set emission limits and auction off permits which individual emitters could later buy and sell. A bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009 had called for a 17% reduction in American greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2020, but in July 2010 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the bill dead, as he could not come up with a supermajority of 60 senators to pass the controversial legislation.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mex., concluded on Dec. 10, 2010, with the adoption of a package of decisions designed to move governments toward a low-emissions future. As part of this overall effort, conference representatives lent their support to various climate-change initiatives in less-developed countries (LDCs). One of the more prominent elements of the Cancún Agreements was the creation of a Green Climate Fund, a mechanism designed to raise and disseminate $100 billion per year by 2020 to transfer clean technologies to LDCs and help them adapt to the effects of climate change. Governments decided that the fund’s board would have equal representation from LDCs and developed countries. Governments also agreed to work to keep the rise in average global temperatures under the threshold of 2 °C (3.6 °F) above preindustrial levels. They developed a timetable for review to ensure that global actions were adequate to confront the anticipated rise in average global temperatures.